


In Which There Is No Mud-Wrestling (Damn!)

by Cakemage



Category: Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues (1984), Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Cryptozoology, Dreamsharing, Established Relationship, F/F, Fun with Cryptids, Humor, Lucid Dreaming, MST3K Cameos, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13032780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cakemage/pseuds/Cakemage
Summary: As Tanya and Leslie return home from studying a particularly odoriferous variety of cryptid in the Everglades, Leslie is troubled by an all-too-familiar dream about sarcastic robots and a long-suffering guy in a jumpsuit.





	In Which There Is No Mud-Wrestling (Damn!)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetSparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts).



"I'm just saying, Mike. What's the point of them investigating all these swamp creatures if they're never gonna mud-wrestle naked? It's not as if there's a shortage of quality wrestlin' mud in the Everglades," said the small, red robot with the clear, round plastic head. 

Leslie was pretty sure his name was Tom Servo, or was it Crow T. Robot? No, she remembered, Crow was the bug-eyed gold robot with the bowling pin mouth and the voice that changed periodically. 

"There's also no shortage of mosquitoes, alligators, spiders, ticks, leeches and venomous snakes," replied Mike, the big, pasty human in a dark blue jumpsuit.

"Oh, whatever," said Crow. "You humans are such babies about animal bites. I bet you can't even name one person who's ever actually died from being bitten by an animal."

"People die from that all the time!" Mike replied with exasperated patience, which Leslie hadn't even known was a possible combination of emotions before she and Tanya had started having these dreams. 

"Name one, then. Go ahead!" Crow replied smugly.

"Yeah!" Servo added, folding his slinky arms haughtily. 

"I, well, uh…" Mike said falteringly.

Before the robots could antagonize him further, a light began to flash on the console behind which the trio were gathered. Mike sighed in resignation. 

"We'll talk about this later. Right now, Pearl's calling and _she's_ waking up, anyway," he said, gesturing towards Leslie, who sat silent and unmoving a few feet in front of the console, a captive audience. 

Sure enough, as soon as Mike finished speaking, Leslie's eyes fluttered open. It took her a few moments to regain her bearings and remember where she was: riding shotgun in her and Tanya's trusty Jeep, on their way home from researching the Skunk Ape in the Florida Everglades. A glance through the windshield showed her that Tanya had just pulled into the entrance of the long driveway leading to their small Arkansas farm. 

In the three decades following their first experience with the Boggy Creek Creatures, Tanya had become a renowned expert on folk legends and cryptids great and small, with Leslie as her faithful photographer and loving wife. Despite her rocky start in the world of crypto-zoology, Leslie had long since overcome her fear of large, hairy swamp beasts and skeevy hillbillies, and while she was still very much a screamer, it tended to happen in a wholly different context these days. Still, she had her limits.

"Tanya, you know I love you, right?" she began, grimacing as she caught a whiff of herself.

"Yeah?" Tanya replied with a playful grin.

"And you know I love our work," Leslie continued as she reached for the open jar of Vaporub that was sitting in one of the cup-holders.

"Uh-huh."

"But we are _never_ researching another creature with the word "skunk" in its name again," she finished, rubbing the ointment under her nostrils for the third time that day and sighing in relief as the combined scents of menthol, camphor and eucalyptus once more blocked out most of the stench the over-affectionate skunk ape troop had left on them, in which three baths with store-bought skunk odor remover had barely put a dent.

Tanya laughed and followed suit, dipping a finger into the ointment and smearing it under her nose as soon as Leslie placed it back in the cup-holder. "Fair enough. I'm not exactly eager to repeat the experience myself, and getting the smell outta this Jeep is gonna be a bitch and a half."

"Not to mention getting the smell off of us," Leslie added. "And in all honesty, if we never go to another swamp again _period_ it'll be too soon. I've had my fill of _mud_ ," she finished darkly.

At this, Tanya's face grew more serious. "You had one of those dreams again, didn't you?" she asked.

Leslie nodded silently. Both she and Tanya had begun to have lucid dreams about the sarcastic little robots and their beleaguered human friend shortly after their return from their first study of the Boggy Creek Creatures. Usually they shared the same dream, though they were unable to interact with each other (or the robots and Mike, for that matter) while the dreams were occurring. They were simply aware of each other's presence, which was both eerie and oddly comforting all at once. However, since they were not always asleep at the same time, one would often have the dreams without the other, during which the human and robots would acknowledge their presence more often than they did when the women were together, though they never spoke directly to either of them and always referred to them in the third person. 

Over the years, Tanya and Leslie had spent nearly as much time researching this phenomenon as they had studying the cryptids of the world, and yet they had never found a single clue as to what was causing these shared dreams to occur or what they meant. They had often speculated as to whether or not Dr. Lockhart, Tim, Old Man Crenshaw and even the two Creatures had been affected by the dreams as well. They wondered if that had been what caused Tim to go feral, or if Mike, Servo and Crow had, through the realm of sleep, somehow egged on the Creatures into attempting to take violent revenge on Crenshaw and Doc, who were now in hiding. There would probably be no answers coming from any of them. 

"What is Servo's obsession with us mud-wrestling?" Leslie asked irritably, running her fingers through her thick, curly hair. "We're _married_ , and they're apparently watching our whole damn lives. There's gotta be more excitin' things for him to focus on besides the prospect of us throwin' down in the mud, don't you think?"

"I know I can think of a few more excitin' things right now," Tanya replied with a smirk and a flirty sideways glance as she finally pulled up next to their small, yellow farmhouse. 

Leslie rolled her eyes and smiled indulgently. " _Not_ right now, not while we both still smell like skunk ape hugs." 

Tanya laughed and pretended to pout. "Oh, you're no fun."

Leslie's reply was cut off by the sound of a scuffle on their front porch. Both women quickly turned to look for the source of the noise and, upon finding it, sighed in unison. 

"Damn, not again! Ugh, I'll get the hose if you'll unhook the camper," said Leslie, shaking her head resignedly as she got out of the Jeep. 

"Yeah, okay," Tanya replied, massaging her temples in frustration.

"Break it up, break it up!" Leslie shouted as she aimed the hose at Tim and the raccoon, who had been fighting over their tipped-over trash can.

By the looks of things, the raccoon had been winning, as usual. With an indignant hiss and a final swipe of its claws across Tim's face, the soaked raccoon turned and trundled off into the woods. Tim, meanwhile, ran whimpering into the barn with an empty can of ravioli clutched against his skinny, bare chest.

"Dammit, I told the house-sitter to keep the trash can in the garage," Leslie muttered under her breath.

She glanced over at Tanya, who had just finished unhooking the camper and was driving the Jeep up to the front door for them to unload. With a nod to herself, Leslie unlocked the house and went inside to call an ambulance to come get Tim again. That done, she made a small plateful of bologna sandwiches and grabbed a spare first aid kit, then headed out to the barn. 

"Tim, I broughtcha a first aid kit and some sandwiches," she called out as she stood at the entrance to the barn.

She and Tanya had long ago learned not to go into the barn after Tim had lost a fight with a woodland creature. He could be very unpredictable and clingy when he was in pain. No, it was best just to leave his food and bandages at the entrance and wait for the paramedics to come and tranq him so they could carry him back to the hospital, which never seemed able to hold onto him for very long.

"It's all by the door, as usual. The paramedics'll be here soon to patch you up. Please try not to spook the horses while you're eating this time," she said, setting both kit and plate down and walking back up to the house to help Tanya with unloading their luggage and equipment. 

She heard Tim call out a weak "Thank you," followed by the sounds of enthusiastic chewing. 

She shuddered and quickened her pace until he was no longer within earshot. 

Though Tim rarely spoke anymore, Leslie and Tanya were both fairly certain that he could still understand them, and saw him as more of a nuisance than a danger, provided they didn't get too close to him after he'd been beaten up and humiliated by small animals. Though he usually only stayed in the hospital just long enough to get stitched up and receive the occasional rabies booster shot, he only seemed to show up at Tanya and Leslie's house a couple times a year. No one knew where he went in-between, despite many attempts by both the police and the scientific community to affix tracking devices to him. Leslie and Tanya, however, had long ago accepted that the migratory patterns of Tim were destined to remain a mystery, as was the question of whether or not his activities were influenced by dreams of snarky robots in space.

"Leslie, I can finish unloading if you'll go look up recipes for homemade odor remover," said Tanya as her wife approached.

"Sure thing, babe!" Leslie replied cheerfully, her mood lifted by being given an excuse to avoid lifting things and not having to come up with one on her own.

Tanya rolled her eyes and shook her graying head with an affectionate grin as Leslie headed inside. Some things never changed.


End file.
